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Yesterday, the day Haitians have been patiently waiting for since October, finally arrived. After a series of delays and time stalling, the results of the March 20 elections were finally announced, as Haitians discovered who would be taking the helm of their battered country and leading it towards a hopefully better, more stable future.
In anticipation of violent protests, machetes had sold out across the tiny Caribbean nation – lest the results not align with national feeling, as was the case back in November. The atmosphere was tense as the country collectively held its breath.
Finally, at approximately 18.30 local time, an air of celebration erupted, as Michel Martelly AKA Sweet Micky, was announced the winner with a landslide 67% victory.
Martelly had long been the people’s popular choice, though many felt the results would be compromised to stop him from winning against former first lady Mirlande Manigat.
As festivities unfolded, however, some complained of an apparent deliberate blocking and downgrading of cellular signal.
“As usual, #Haiti cell phone networks are downgraded/blocked in an attempt to avert crowds forming. I have mixed feelings on this,” wrote one aid worker stationed in Leogane.
“We’re all on Digicel (though apparently Voila does it too). We’ve seen this before,” she replied when quizzed further by this reporter.
“I chatted with other folks in our organization and they said that the downgrading comes up in NGO security meetings. Apparently it happens in other countries too. Folks say it’s not official policy, but that they can’t see it being anything else,” she added.
RCR immediately checked with the CEOs of both Haitian operators, receiving an emphatic denial from both.
“At no point in time have we ever been requested by the Haitian government to constrain, block or otherwise limit access to communications,” said Voila’s Robin Padberg.
“Events like last night’s, as with an event such as New Year’s, create tremendous spikes in processing loads on communications networks. During periods of peak usage certain operators will resort to ‘blocking’ (limiting the number of simultaneous call attempts per sector per site) to protect their network. I’ve reviewed our logs for last night and, whereas we did see a tremendous spike in traffic immediately following the publication of the results, I can confirm that we did not block/constrain traffic at any of our sites,” he added.
Meanwhile, Digicel’s CEO Maarten Boute replied, “No, we did no downsizing at all, on the contrary! We had all open and boosted where possible. We are a tool for democracy!”
We put these responses to the aid worker who had first alerted us to the issue. “Interesting response,” she said, adding skeptically “Of course this is all hearsay, but given the level of corruption in Haiti I have to say I don’t trust official statements very much.”
